He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” (Matt.13:33).

You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.   “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Matt.5:13-16)

In both of the above scriptures, Jesus spoke about the influence of believers on the world. If we are to make disciples of all nations, we must not only share the gospel with the lost but we must influence culture and nations as well. The enemy has had dominion over culture and nations since the Garden but Jesus commanded his church to take back those things so that the values of heaven are lived out the earth. Even our prayers should reflect that mission. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Unfortunately, too many Christians have interpreted that statement from the Lord’s Prayer to mean that once Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on earth, then and only then will God’s will be done on earth. But the Great Commission which commands us to make disciples of nations establishes a mandate to effect cultures and territories before his return. Until he returns to personally sit on the throne we are to be expanding the kingdom not only in individual hearts but also as salt, light, and leaven we are to be making our influence felt whenever and wherever we can support and promote righteousness. With mid-term elections just a few weeks away, we have an opportunity to be God’s salt, light, and leaven in America. To withdraw from political involvement because it is “too worldly” is to abdicate our responsibility to be an influence for good is this world.

We all know that morality and spirituality cannot be legislated and faith cannot and should not be forced on others by law or coercion. Yet God’s intention for government is that governments should promote good and restrain evil while the gospel is having its way with the hearts of men. Governments should be “under God” and see themselves as instruments of his purposes. As these mid-terms approach, I hope that every believer will choose to vote as a representative of the kingdom of God who is representing God on the earth by being, slat, light, and leaven in America and in her voting booths.

I do not presume to choose candidates for people but every believer should know what is at stake in an election and vote for those whose values and platforms are most closely aligned with the values and goals of heaven. I’m not saying that we only vote when platforms are perfectly aligned but we must support the candidate or the party that is closest to those values. Prayer is always essential and is also a powerful way of influencing our culture and nature. Since I don’t always know the heart of a man or a woman, may I suggest a prayer as we approach these final two weeks of campaigning?

            Father in heaven, I ask that you continue to have mercy on this nation. We have strayed and we have often sinned against you. But Father, I ask you to remember the faithful in this nation now and the faithful of this nation who have served you in centuries and decades past. I pray that you restore faith in this nation and exalt your name and the name of Jesus once again in America. Lord I simply ask that you remove every leader who has no regard for you or your commands. I ask that you remove everyone from authority who has no fear of you and no love for you. I ask that you remove all favor from those who are enemies of the cross and that you totally confuse the counsel of those who oppose you and your church.

            And Lord I ask that you raise up courageous men and women of faith who regard you and love your name and who will not fear man but only you. Lord give them favor even among their opponents and undeniable wisdom in their words. I pray that you will put your people in high places of leadership and authority so that your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven in this nation. And Father, may your Spirit lead me as I step into the voting booth or have conversations with friends about America. Lord you said that righteousness exalts a nation so by your Spirit and by your mercy will you make America a righteous nation again. I ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen

I’m rereading Dutch Sheets book, Intercessory Prayer (everyone should read it), and have been reminded of some critically important principles about which we can become careless to our detriment. Let me quote from him.

“Many Christians believe that protection from accidents, destruction, satanic traps, and assaults, etc. is automatic for the Christian – that we do nothing to cause it – that it is based on the sovereignty of God alone. In other words, when God wants to protect us from these things, He does; when he chooses not to he allows them to happen. This belief simply means that whether or not we are delivered from destructive things is based entirely on God, not us….Whether or not God directly controls every event in the life of a Christian can be answered by stating that the basic laws of sowing and reaping, cause and effect, individual responsibility and the free will aren’t negated when we come to Christ. All promises from God are attached to conditions – governing principles. Most, if not all, of these conditions involve responsibility on our part. Protection is no exception” (p.81-82).

I would add to Sheets’ thoughts the admonition from James that “we have not because we ask not.” In addition, Jesus taught us to pray, “and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” In other words, we need to ask God daily for protection from the enemy – not only for ourselves but our families, friends and spiritual leaders as well. Satan is not indifferent toward us. He plans, schemes, and lays traps for God’s people. Because of that God counsels us to put on his armor, to be alert, and to pray in the Spirit at all times (see Eph.6:18).

I’m reminding you and myself that we have been instructed to pray for protection and for the wisdom to detect the schemes and traps of the devil. We have been given authority over the enemy but we must exercise that authority in our prayers and other settings for that authority to do us any good.

We are living in a season of heightened demonic activity. Inevitably, what we see going on in the natural realm is a reflection of activity in the spiritual realm because our primary struggle is not against flesh and blood. Across the globe there is unprecedented persecution against Christians. Hatred against Israel is on the rise again. Even in America there is clearly a war being waged against Christianity and biblical truth. When a nation’s leaders legislate to remove the name of God and the commandments of God from the public realm, when they deny that Jesus is the only way to the Father, when they call evil good and call good evil then they release the demonic over a nation.

School shootings, child trafficking, beheadings in Oklahoma, domestic violence, murder, rape, natural disasters, and the rise of Isis with crosshairs on America are not primarily political, social, or environmental in nature. They are primarily actions and conditions prompted by spiritual forces. Weapons or strategies of the world cannot resolve those forces and influences but only God’s divine weapons (see 2 Cor. 10:4) can overcome them. As we pray for solutions to these huge issues in the world we must not forget to pray daily for the protection of the Lord because the enemy has been released in our nation.

The psalmist declares that the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear the Lord and promises protection as we dwell in the shadow of the Almighty. But that protection comes when we are obedient to the Lord and when we consistently and persistently intercede for ourselves and others asking God to keep the evil one from us and to build walls of protection around us. Pray for protection from the enemy, from his snares, from wicked men, from disease, and from poverty. Pray and pray everyday. It is God’s will and his counsel.

Faith can be hard when life does not meet our expectations. Faith can be hard when promises we read in scripture that seem black and white and iron clad do not unfold as we anticipated. Faith can be hard when we expect God to intervene in supernatural ways to right every wrong yet we see wrong prevailing. This is not a new dilemma. The psalmists struggled with the same issues.

But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.      For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills…This is what the wicked are like—always carefree, they increase in wealth. Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning. (Ps.73:2-5, 12-14).

Here was a man who tried to live for the Lord every day and to so what was right. And yet, his days seemed like a constant struggle. Nothing was working out. God seemed to be ignoring his prayers. Perhaps he had health problems or financial struggles. Maybe his business was failing or his boss was a tyrant. Maybe he had a rebellious child or his marriage was slipping away. Those things in themselves were hard enough but the kicker was what he observed in the lives of those who gave no thought to God at all. They were prospering – good looks, great health, a fine house, the best of food and wine, an upper tier education for their kids, amazing vacations and a Roman spa membership. Along with that they enjoyed fame and fortune built on deceit and unscrupulous business practices. Where was justice?

There is a slice of biblical theology in which God promises good things to the faithful – health, safety, prosperity, obedient children, and long life along with vengeance on the wicked. But there is also another slice that promises persecution, hardship, warfare with an invisible enemy, a need to put on armor every day and a prayer to keep the evil one from us. If we ever believe that our faith will smooth every road, give us favor in every situation, and that every prayer will be answered immediately just as we had envisioned it, we will probably live with disappointment. The greatest danger is that we will take up offense against God and decide that he is untrustworthy.

Scripture calls on us to preach, teach, and understand the whole counsel of God not just one facet that we find particularly appealing. All of God’s word is true and all of his promises are certain but they often come later than we anticipated. Think about Joseph who was given prophetic dreams that he would be a ruler some day with his brothers bowing before him. All that came to pass but only after being sold into slavery, falsely accused, imprisoned, and forgotten. Eventually there was prosperity and power but a season of hardship filled the parenthesis between the dream and the reality. Neither the suffering nor the prosperity contradicted God’s word. The key for Joseph was not to judge God as a liar because his dreams were not fulfilled immediately or even soon but to continue to trust God that his promises would come to pass – some in this life and some in the life to come. We greatly differentiate between this life and the life to come, but I suspect God sees them both as one continuum. Promises made now but fulfilled then are just as faithful.

The psalmist struggled with the idea that God’s justice should punish the wicked while all he saw was the wicked being blessed. He lamented, “When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me” (Ps.73:16). Sometimes our assumption in such matters is that God is blessing the wicked while we forget that the prince of this world can bestow wealth and fame as well. As he continued to seek God, however, he was given a revelation. “Till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny” (Ps.73:17). In a moment, God revealed the eternal destiny of the wicked and the certainty of God’s justice. We are also told that the kindness or goodness of God calls men to repentance. So judgment and mercy are both reserved for the wicked to be dispensed in different seasons.

All this is to say that when we live by faith, we trust in the promises of God and often we cry out for those promises believing God for an answer. When we don’t see his answer quickly or as we had imagined it or when we see those who are indifferent to God already enjoying blessings that we are still praying for, we may take offense at God when he is still being true to his word. Remember, Paul had to learn to be content in moments of abundance and in moments of scarcity as well. Faith and expectations must be rooted first in the goodness and faithfulness of God so that I know God will grant a harvest for whatever I am sowing into with faith and prayer. Then I wait on him to see how and when the harvest comes. May he always give us eyes to see what he is doing and understanding to know what he has already done and to always count him faithful.

I’ve been asked to write a few blogs related to healing prayer so I want to honor that request and take whatever time is needed to cover the subject succinctly yet thoroughly. I will begin with the basis for healing prayer followed by a discussion of healing gifts, things that get in the way of healing, and then how to pray. I’m not an expert nor to I have a gift of healing but I have prayed for some who have been healed immediately and others who have been healed after some time has passed. I have learned a great deal about the subject from those who are gifted in healing and from the scriptures so I will share my best understanding of the issues involved.

First of all, faith is the basis for everything in the kingdom. “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb.11:6). In the realm of healing there is one primary truth upon which healing stands – the character or nature of God. If I doubt the goodness of God and his love for people, then I will have no confidence that God will answer my prayer for healing – either for others or myself. My prayer cannot be offered with faith in my own righteousness or good works or in the righteousness and good works of others. I cannot have faith in my faith. As soon as I enter into he realm of my worthiness to be healed or someone else’s worthiness the question arises of how much faith, how much righteousness, and how many good works are enough and that questions introduces either doubt or pride. God does not owe anyone healing because they have earned the right. He heals because he is good. He heals because he is love. Even with our fallen nature, we yearn to see those we love healed from sickness and affliction. How much more does God love us?

Then the question is asked, “Well…aren’t God’s ways and thoughts higher than our ways and thoughts? So isn’t it possible that God views sickness and disability differently than we view them? Couldn’t those things be for our greater good and so might they not be an expression of love and goodness in ways we can’t understand?” The answer is “No.” I’m not saying that God can’t use calamity and sickness for good. He does so all the time. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom.8:28). The sense of that verse is that God will intervene in bad situations caused by life in a fallen world or by demonic attack and ultimately make them sources of “good” in our lives because he loves us. That is not the same as causing the bad situation or being the source of sickness.

Illness in scripture is always attributed to sin and rebellion in the world or in the lives of God’s people and each warning carries a promise to heal when God’s people return to him. Even under the Old Covenant, God promised health as a blessing. We live under a better covenant. Not once did God ever promise sickness or disability as a blessing to the faithful. Jehovah Rapha is the “God who heals you.” It is God’s nature to bless and to heal and so he delights in doing so when conditions for healing are met.

Jesus has been known for 2000 years as the great physician because he healed hearts and bodies throughout his ministry. We have no record of anyone coming to Jesus for healing and being turned down. We have no record of Jesus laying hands on anyone and imparting sickness or commanding a healthy person to become lame for his spiritual benefit. Jesus told Philip that whoever had seen him had seen the Father (Jn. 14:9). Whoever had seen the compassion and the heart of Jesus expressed toward the lost, the hurting, the sick and the demon oppressed has seen the heart of the Father. Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil. When he constantly healed the sick and made healing a mark of the kingdom, he identified sickness as a work of the devil.

When we pray for healing, we must have faith that the goodness of God and his love for people makes him agreeable to our prayer. There may be things that hinder God’s response, which we will discuss later, but our faith for healing must simply rest on the fact that God is a good and loving Father and fathers have no desire to see their children sick or suffering. Before praying, make up your mind that God is willing to heal because that is who he is. Jesus demonstrated the Father’s willingness to heal over and over again. Be blessed.

But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (Jude 20-21)

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself…(1 Cor.14:4)

These are two interesting verses form the New Testament that both relate to a believer’s prayer language or praying in tongues. The phrases “build yourself up” and “edifies himself” are the same word in the original language.   The word means “to increase the potential of someone or something, with focus upon the process involved—‘to strengthen, to make more able, to build up.’”

The above scripture taken from Jude suggests something very important. Jude suggests that our capacity to grow spiritually, to increase in our spiritual potential, and to be made stronger and more able in spiritual matters is directly proportional to the time we spend praying in the Holy Spirit.   Paul confirms that principle by telling us that when we speak in a tongue we edify (build up and strengthen) ourselves. That is why one of the normative experiences in the New Testament after being baptized in the Spirit was speaking in tongues. If you just received the power of the Spirit, you need maturity to govern the power you’ve been given. Praying in the Spirit accelerates our maturity.

The counter-intuitive part of that process is that when we pray in the Spirit or in tongues, we have no idea what we are praying. “For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit… For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind” (1 Cor.14:2, 14-15).

Paul encourages us to pray both “with the understanding” and “with our spirits” but he tells us that praying in the Spirit has the effect of increasing our spiritual strength, enhancing our spiritual gifts, activating our spiritual senses, increasing revelation, and developing the fruits of the Spirit. Every part of the ministry of the Spirit in our lives can be enhanced when we engage with the Spirit allowing him to pray through us.

The great advantage of praying in the Spirit is that the Spirit prays for the things we need most to thrive spiritually and lifts those prayers up to the throne room of heaven with an eloquence and familiarity we could never achieve. Not only that, but the Spirit is quite aware of God’s will for our lives – his purposes, plans, and desires. “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Rom.8:26-27). The Spirit then prays things for us that we are yet clueless about so that God’s purposes can be perfected in our lives.

I believe the Spirit prays for us even when we are not praying in the Spirit but God always likes to partner with his people and accomplish things together. Praying in the Spirit helps to align our spirit with God’s Spirit. In doing so, I believe it also plays a key role in renewing our minds so that our intellect is submitted to the Spirit of God so that we can truly be led by the Spirit.

So…here is the point of all this. If you have your prayer language but just use it occasionally, begin to pray in tongues on a daily basis. Many of us only pray in tongues when we worship or when we are about to minister healing or deliverance to someone. But praying in the Spirit has a cumulative affect and, like physical exercise, needs to be increased for us to get stronger and go longer. Many of us have prayed and asked God for certain spiritual gifts we desire or to strengthen us is areas of our lives where we are often tempted and, perhaps, have not yet experienced the growth that we desire.

We can accelerate the process and fine-tune it by choosing to pray in the Spirit a significant amount of time each day. The testimony of many is that after choosing to pray in the Spirit daily for an hour or more they eventually realized that their spiritual lives had moved to new dimensions. Sometimes God is waiting to see how much we want him, his presence, his Spirit or the things of the Spirit. How much do you want it? Now much do I want it? Carving out time to let his Spirit pray through us and trusting the process – even though we don’t know what the Spirit is asking – is one clear measure of that desire. If you don’t have a gift of tongues for personal prayer, then pray for it, seek it, and ask others to help you receive. If you have it, use it as an exercise to become powerful in the Spirit. It is a gift unlike any other.

About a year ago, I attended a community wide gathering of churches that were meeting to pray for a transforming move of God in West Texas. I appreciate the men who have the vision for such an undertaking and it is always exciting to see the body of Christ come together under the same roof. The worship was stirring and the speakers were dynamic. The heart of the gathering was on target.

Toward the end a special announcement was made about a young woman from one of the leading churches in our area who was in a hospital in another city with a failing heart. She was on a list for a heart transplant but her own heart seemed to be just hours away from collapse. So as the meeting was winding down those who knew her best offered a special prayer. All who prayed cried out to God to provide a heart transplant for this young woman before she died.

It struck me as the prayers were being lifted up that no one was praying for God to heal the heart she had. In essence the prayer required one person, who also had dreams and loved ones, to die so that this young woman who was loved in our city could live. Why not pray for God to make her heart new rather than for a car wreck and a suitable donor? I’m not against heart transplants and I’m not against praying for a heart but it seemed that it never crossed anyone’s mind that God could restore the heart he had given her. With 2000 believers in the room from churches all over the area an amazing opportunity to build faith and launch a significant move of God was handed to us. However, we prayed for her to receive a transplant which any number of people in America received that week without prayer.

I get to hear many prayers offered up by man y sincere believers. The majority of the time it seems that we ask God for the ordinary and receive the ordinary. We ask God to help the doctors do their best work and yet I suspect they will probably do so without the intervention of heaven. We pray for a job and after twelve interviews we get a job. So did a number of other people who never prayed. I’m not against those prayers but what I notice is that we often pray for God to do bring about best outcomes in the natural realm that already have a high probability of occurring if God never acts on our request. Because of that, when its over, by faith we may believe that God answered our prayers but unbelievers wouldn’t be convinced at all. In those moment’s God may get our thanks but he doesn’t get much glory and our faith stays where it was – asking God for the ordinary instead of the impossible.

The model Jesus gave us was to ask God for the impossible – to ask for things that will absolutely not happened unless he shows up. Healing the sick, casting out demons, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, turning water into wine, feeding 5000 with a box lunch – those are the things Jesus trusted God for and when it was over God was glorified, unbelievers came to faith, the faith of believers multiplied, and the works of the devil were destroyed.

We know that asking for the impossible is the biblical model so why don’t we ask? Some of us have been taught that God doesn’t “do that stuff” anymore but I think most of us don’t ask because we are afraid of disappointment. If we ask and we don’t see God move then what does that say about God, our faith, or our prayers? The truth is that we may not always see God do the impossible when we pray. It’s possible that not everyone will be healed. It’s possible that the miracle check won’t come in the mail. It’s possible that the marriage won’t be saved. Faith has to live with the mystery of why God does not always act when and how we asked. Faith bears the disappointment, takes no offense at God, and then asks for the next impossible thing. We may not see God do the impossible every time we ask but when he does move in that moment, God will be glorified, our faith will multiply, unbelievers will come to faith and the works of the devil will be destroyed.

Faith also says that God did move in response to our prayer. As we sow into prayer there must be a harvest because God has ordained it. We may not perceive what the harvest is our how God moved but we can be assured that something changed in light of our prayer for the impossible.

Sometimes I think God must be offended that we ask so little of him. Our prayers for the ordinary must sometimes seem like us asking a virtuoso pianist to peck out Mary Had a Little Lamb when he is able and willing and wanting to do so much more. I hope as we pray we will begin to ask God to do what is impossible if he doesn’t show up; to ask for more than we can think or imagine; and to draw on the immense power of heaven that is poised to act on behalf of the church. After all, is anything too hard for God? Those who pray for the supernatural moves of God to do the impossible may not see it done every time, but those who don’t pray for the impossible will never see it done.

In order for someone to find freedom in Christ, that individual must recognize and acknowledge the sin in his/her life.  Unrepented sin gives the enemy legal access to our lives because in those areas that we have roped off for ourselves and our flesh, we are in agreement with Satan.

To help people find their freedom in Christ we must learn how to help people deal with the sin that is usually so apparent to others but not always apparent to them.  In addition, we must do so in love.  In everything we do, we must follow the lead of the Savior of all men and the one who has shown us the heart of the Father.  As we look at the life and ministry of Jesus, however, we find two or three general responses to sin and at times they seem to be quite contradictory.

Most of us love the response of Jesus to the sins of the woman at the well (Jn.4:1-26) and the woman taken in adultery (Jn.8: 1-11).  In both of those settings Jesus encounters women whose lives have been marked with sin.  The Samaritan woman of John 4 seems to have had a reputation in her village that had gained her the status of outcast. She had lived with a number of husbands and was simply living with her latest lover.  According to John, Jesus was resting at the well about noon when the woman showed up to draw water.  Traditionally the women of the village would have come to the well in the cool of the morning and the evening rather than in the heat of the day.  Perhaps, she came at noon to avoid the other women of the village. The woman described in John 8 was a woman caught in the very act of adultery who doesn’t bother to argue her innocence even when her life is on the line.

In both cases the gentleness and mercy of Jesus is almost overwhelming. In both cases Jesus acknowledges the sin in the lives of each woman but almost in passing.  Instead he emphasizes the grace and forgiving nature of God.  He points them to a better life but in no way shames them or condemns them as they go on their way.  That is the Jesus most of us love and are comfortable with – the Jesus who says little about sin but just points people to the grace of God.

But in his gospel, John describes another moment when Jesus heals a man who had been lame for thirty-eight years.  This man had spent his days begging at the pool of Bethesda.  In a moment of compassion, Jesus saw the man and healed him.  It is such a quick moment that the man doesn’t even discover who has healed him.  But John tells us that later in the day, Jesus found the man in the temple area and privately warned him to “stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (Jn.5:14).   In this case Jesus gives a private rebuke to a sinful man so that he might find eternal life and not lose the healing he had received for “the kindness of God calls us to repentance” (Rom.2:4).

Finally, we are all aware of the sharp confrontations Jesus had with the Pharisees. With these men he was not gentle nor did he give a private rebuke.  He scolded them in public and called them sons of Satan (Jn.8:44), a brood of vipers (Mt.12), blind guides (Mt.23) and  more.

So how do we reconcile these encounters if we are to do all things in love? If Jesus came to seek and to save the lost why is he gentle with some and scathing with others?  I believe that the common ground of each encounter was the redemptive motive of Jesus.  His goal for all three types of sinner was redemption and that goal was motivated by love.  Remember, we are called to love even those we don’t like.

To the women, Jesus took on a priestly role of dispensing hope, gentleness, grace and forgiveness. These women were quite aware of their sins and already carried their own burden of shame for the lives they had been leading.  Jesus had no need to convince them of their sinfulness. He needed to convince them that the great and holy God of Israel was willing to forgive and embrace them despite their sinful past.

That was the message they needed to hear. To the lame man Jesus seemed to take a middle ground of demonstrating God’s mercy but then confronting his sin in a personal way so not to humiliate the man. In a sense, this man needed to be reminded that God’s mercy was not released into his life so that he could continue to be the man that he was before he was healed. He needed to be reminded that the grace of God call us to a different life.    In that case, Christ took a position somewhere between priest and prophet and brought grace with a word of warning.

When facing the Pharisees who trusted in their own righteousness and who were blinded to their sins by a spiritual arrogance, Jesus came in the spirit of the prophets with a get-in-your face rebuke and a call to repentance.  Though it was harsh it was still an attempt to redeem these men.

So in helping men and women deal with their sins there are times to be very priestly, times to be very prophetic, and times to stand somewhere in between.  For many, it will be very apparent which approach to take in order to help them find freedom.  For others it will take a clear leading of the Spirit.  One approach will easily fit our temperament while the other will be very foreign to us but discernment and flexibility is key.   Jesus did not love some and hate others.  He simply knew which approach was most redemptive in the moment – not only to the one he was dealing with but to the ones who were watching.

However, we do it, we must help people discern and acknowledge their sin and their brokenness if they are to be healed and set free.  Think about what is most needed and the spirit in which it must be ministered the next time God puts someone in your life that needs the grace and the healing touch of Jesus and may the Lord bless you today.

There are many things we get wrong because we are viewing them from the wrong perspective.  It’s like the old saying, “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”  I’m really not certain what that old saying means but I think it’s the idea that sometimes we miss the big picture because we are caught up in the details.  Our spiritual life can be affected by working from the wrong perspective as well.  Sometimes we serve God like beggars rather than sons and daughters of the royal household. From that perspective, we get lost in worry about whether God will provide rather than living in anticipation of how he will provide.

One of our great struggles in prayer is the notion that prayer is about getting God to do what we want him to do.  Our perspective is that we set God’s agenda for our life and then try to persuade him to fulfill that agenda. That is not what Jesus modeled for us.  Jesus taught us to look for what the Father is doing and then join him in the heavenly agenda. “Jesus gave them this answer: I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does’” (Jn.5:19)

Jesus lived with the idea that the Father was the initiator of his daily assignments. Basically he asked God to show him what the agenda was for him that day and then he lived it out.  Much of what the Father directed Jesus to do wasn’t always logical from an earthly point of view.  How many times did Jesus leave the crowds clamoring for more when, from our perspective, he should have stayed while demand for the message was high.  Certainly, confronting the religious establishment wasn’t the way to grow the church; it got him crucified.  Jesus spent his days hanging out with sinners, sick people, the demonized, and the despised.  Our wisdom would have directed us to spend our days building relationships with the rich, the powerful and the influential in order to resource the preaching of the gospel.  My point is that God’s agenda for our days might and probably would look very different from our own blueprint for the next twenty-four hours.

I know theologically we agree with Jesus but practically we (I include myself) still tend to default back to bringing our plans to the Father and asking him to fund what we have imagined. Graham Cooke speaks to this perspective when he says, “Prayer, in its simplest form, is finding out what God wants to do and then asking Him to do it. When we don’t listen before we pray we end up presenting God with options instead of a request. We’ll pray whatever comes to mind instead of entering into communion with Him. Our internal, clamoring agenda gives God a multiple choice prayer…Prayer is praying with God not to God. It is praying with the answer, not to try and find one” (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p. 103).

If our perspective on prayer was trying to discern the heart and will of God and then asking him to do what he already had in mind, we would be much more like Jesus.  Our goal would be to fulfill his will on earth rather than our own.  I’m not saying that we pray for evil things, we may pray for many good things but those things may not be in sync with God’s purposes for a person, a specific situation,  or even for ourselves.

Our first objection to that way of thinking is that if God already has in mind what he wants to do then why pray at all.  The answer, once again, is found in God’s desire for partnership.  There are many things he wants to do that he will not do until his people pray.  Since we have been given authority on the earth, God honors our authority and does not disempower us by doing what he wants without our involvement or consent. Authority flows from the top down even in a family and when we align our prayers with the Father’s plans we will see much more fruit.

So then how do we know what the Father wants us to pray about?  Many things are constants revealed in the word of God.  We are told to pray for those in authority and to pray for peace.  Paul tells us a number of things for which he constantly prayed – boldness to preach the gospel, the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation, an increase in love, healing for the sick, etc. Those things are always on God’s agenda.  But then we should exam the unselfish desires of our heart.  Have we begun to carry a burden for someone or someplace or some ministry?  God may have well placed on your heart what was already on his heart.  Circumstances often seem to point us to a place where God is already working but is the Spirit provoking us to pray for that or involve ourselves in a situation?

We cannot minister to everyone we encounter in a day or involve ourselves in every opportunity that we hear about.  We can quickly eliminate some things as being ungodly but many things would not be wrong.  We will still need God to direct us to the opportunities appointed to us.  Some plant, some water, and God gives the increase.  We need to know what our role is.  The best way to know is to hear a fresh word from God.  Learning to listen, then pray, then listen, then pray is a tough discipline in this “run and gun” world, but I believe it is what Jesus did on those nights when he went off by himself to pray.

When I think about praying for God’s agenda rather than my own and avoiding selfish prayers, my flesh cries out, “Yeah, but what about me?” When I say that, I discover a lack of trust in me toward the Father.  I somehow don’t quite believe that the desires of his heart for me as well as the rest of the world will bring me joy and meet my needs in better ways than I could ever imagine.  I don’t quite believe that his timetable for me is really suitable.  I don’t quite believe that he is interested in the deepest needs of my being.  I’m afraid that when everyone else’s needs have been met through my service, my own needs will be left undone.  But then I need to go back and read the Spirit’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and remember that God is love.  All of those qualities of love spelled out in that chapter must be how God feels about you and me and in that character I am assured that God not only wants what’s best for me but also knows what’s best for me.

Maybe we just need to test the waters by asking God what he would have us pray about today or do today and trust that it will lead to blessing and happiness.  Maybe we should just try it for 90 days to see how life flows for us and to see how our relationship with the Father flows.  It’s all a matter of perspective. Is real fulfillment going to be found in God propping up my desires or will it be found in me fulfilling his plans?  With all that he had to do, Jesus never seemed to hurry, worry, or be overwhelmed by life.  That sounds really good. His secret was simply doing what God had for him to do each day and receiving what God had already designated as his.  Trust is the perspective we are looking for and it only comes through experiencing the goodness of God when we are in the center of his will.

Be blessed today.

Some of the best rebukes or reminders I receive come from books.  Sometimes the rebukes are just easier to receive because no one sees you wince and there is no alter call – just a lingering conviction that you have begun to forget the most important things.  Its easy to be busy doing good things but not the most important things. The most critical thing in good relationships is communication.  Our relationship with God is no different. The people I know who spend the most time in intimate prayer are also the ones who hear God most clearly and who are anointed with the most power.  Have you noticed that most of the great intercessors you know are probably women?  I think it is because women are more relational by nature than men,  Thy know the value of communication.  It’s harder for men.  When it comes to Christian men, God probably feels like a frustrated wife wanting her husband to talk to her rather than working on projects or watching football. Men love to work for God but it’s harder for them to spend extended time in prayer with him.  Jesus was a man but he spent hours in prayer on many occasions.  It made all the difference for him and it can make all the difference for us.

In speaking about Jesus and the “money changers” in the temple, Jim Cymbala writes, “The first century money-changers were in the temple, but they didn’t have the spirit of the temple. They may have played a legitimate role in assisting people to worship, but they were out of sync with the whole purpose of the Lord’s house. ‘The atmosphere of my Father’s house,’ Jesus seemed to say, ‘is to be prayer.  The aroma around my Father must be that of people opening their hearts in worship and supplication.  This is not just to make a buck.  This is a house for calling on the Lord.’… The feature that is supposed to distinguish Christian churches, Christian people, and Christian gatherings is the aroma of prayer. It doesn’t matter what your tradition of my tradition is.  The house is not ours anyway; it is the Father’s.  Does the Bible ever say anywhere…’My house shall be called a house of preaching? Does it ever say, ‘My house shall be called a house of music?’ Of course not. The Bible does say, ‘My house shall be called a house of pray for all nations.’  These things (preaching and music) are fine … but they must never override prayer as the defining mark of God’s dwelling. The honest truth is that I have seen God do more in people’s lives during ten minutes of real prayer than in ten of my sermons” (Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, p.71).

It’s true.  The Biblical record is that Pentecost was launched by a prayer meeting. Jesus walked on water after a night alone speaking to the Father. When his disciples failed at casting out a demon, Jesus told them that prayer and fasting were necessary to cast out that kind of spirit.  Paul calls on us to pray without ceasing. When Paul tried to preach without ceasing a young man fell out of an upper story window and had to be brought back to life by prayer. Peter received a vision that opened up the gospel to the Gentiles when he was on a roof praying. When believers gathered to pray in Acts 4, the place where they were meeting was shaken, they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word boldly.

Biblically, prayer moves heaven not great sermons or wonderful worship unless the worship is lifted up as prayer. All of those are essential to the life of the church put to be anointed with life changing power; they must be bathed in prayer.  Very few churches truly have prayer meetings any more.  We have conferences, worship nights, sports ministries, support groups, and even community service events but rarely do we gather to pray fervently. Perhaps, that is the primary reason we lack power in the American church and even in our individual lives.  “My house shall be called a house of prayer!”  How amazing would it be if every believer could say that about their own home as well as their church. Just a reminder from pastor Cymbala, but a very important one. May we ramp up our prayer life today and be blessed.

What do you do when you have prayed for something for an extended period of time and have not seen the answer to your prayers?  I have been asked that question in various forms through the years and I have asked it myself.  It comes most often in connection with healing, relationships, and salvation.  Many of us have prayed about health issues for years – about our own or about someone we love without seeing the healing. Others have prayed for years for a marriage to be healed or for God to send them someone to marry and that has yet to happen.  Still others have prayed hundreds of prayers for loved ones to come to the Lord or be set free from addictions and they continue to live lives absent form Jesus.

When we have prayed for a long time for things that are consistent with God’s will, and have not yet seen a positive outcome what do we make of that? Some decide that God is simply not going to answer that prayer and so they stop praying.  Others think that God must not hear their prayers and so they stop asking.  Others begin to believe that a certain situation is beyond God’s remedy and so they simply put that prayer in the box marked “For Another Time  – if Ever.”

As with many things there are mysteries related to how and when God answer’s prayer. Nowhere in scripture does God guarantee an immediate answer to prayer that looks like what we envisioned as the answer.  We, of course, have become the microwave generation who can hardly stand to wait eight minutes for a hot meal much less weeks, months, or years for answered prayer.  The biblical model contains examples of prayers that were answered in fairly short order while others took years or decades.  The Hebrew people cried out for deliverance from Egypt for several hundred years before God called Moses to be the great deliverer. Abraham and Sara had almost certainly prayed for a child for years before God promised to give them the child they desired.  But even then, another twenty-five years passed before that promise was fulfilled.  Others, according to the book of Hebrews believed God for a prayer that was answered after their deaths.

The promises of the New Testament call us to some extended periods of prayer and waiting as well. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encouraged us to “ask, seek, and knock” and promised us that we will receive what we pray for (Mt.7: 7-8). However, those words in the original language carry the sense of enduring, persistent prayer.  They might be best translated as “keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.”  In Luke 18, Jesus told his disciples a parable about a widow who kept going to the local judge asking for justice in a certain matter.  Although the judge was not a righteous man, he finally granted her request because of her persistence.  Luke prefaced the parable with the statement, “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Lk.18:1).  The idea is not that our heavenly Father has to be hounded into answering prayers, but that we should not give up praying until a righteous prayer is answered.

When we find ourselves praying for those things that God has promised or things that are consistent with his will we should not give up.  When we are not seeing heaven move in response to our prayers, we often assume that God is simply not acting on our behalf. Yet Daniel (Daniel 10) prayed and fasted for twenty-one days without evidence that God was responding to his prayer.  And yet, on the twenty-first day an angel appeared and told him that he had been sent in response to Daniel’s prayer as soon as he had uttered it.  For twenty-one days a battle had raged in the “heavenlies” while a demonic prince had resisted the angel of the Lord in his attempt to come to Daniel.  On the twenty-first day of Daniel’s enduring prayer and fasting, Michael the archangel was sent to take up the battle so that the first angel could continue with his mission.  I have often wondered if Michael would have been dispatched if Daniel had given up on his prayer.

My point is that simply because we are not seeing a manifestation of our answered prayer in the natural realm, it does not mean that God is not moving on that prayer in the spiritual realm. But let me offer a couple of thoughts regarding long-term prayers and the question of should we continue to pray.

1. God promises that he will give us whatever we ask for in the name of Jesus that is consistent with his will. By faith, stand on those promises.
2. Be sure that what you are praying for is consistent with God’s will.  Just because something would make us happy in our flesh does not make it consistent with God’s will.  I know many people who have prayed for things that, if granted, would have plunged them into sin or drawn them away from God. A loving Father cannot answer prayers that would place his children in danger. However, a loving Father always wants to provide for his family and alleviate suffering – especially in the area of healing.
3. Ask God if you should keep on praying.  If he says, “Yes,” then keep praying.  If the godly desire still persists in your heart keep on praying. If he says, “No,” then stop praying of if the desire is taken from your heart stop praying.
4. Have others join you in prayer and fasting for the thing you are praying about.
5. Sincerely ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything that is blocking your answer to prayer.
6. If the prayer always brings you into a place of despair because of hurtful memories or feelings surrounding the thing you are praying about, ask God to give you hope about it or pray for it once a week instead of daily.
7. Consistently declare God’s promises regarding answered prayer and claim them on behalf of the prayers you are offering.
8. Be sure that you are emotionally healed and spiritually mature enough that you could steward the answer to your prayer well rather than damaging what God entrusts to you.  Many single Christians pray for a relationship that they would damage because they are not healed or mature enough yet to keep from damaging it.  They think that the relationship would be the catalyst for their healing or spiritual growth but, in actuality, their healing and spiritual growth would be the catalyst for God giving them a relationship to care for.
9. Finally, always pray and never give up.

Be blessed today!